Live Sound Bootcamp

So finally we fall into the concept of Season 3, answering listener questions.  In this episode we answer a question that digs into dialogue, corporate events, house of worship, expectations, auto mixing, noise reduction, how to make a talking human sound like what the audience expects.  One would think this would be a short and simple episode, but nope, as usual, we go on and on.

Lies and lies, we told you that we would have shorter episodes, and we told you that Season three would be dedicated to digging directly into listener questions, but this episode ended up being the very long answer to some in-person questions that we had run into recently.  In this episode we talk about how to start your day when arriving at a new venue, all the way through how to get through your load out. There are quite a few interesting tidbits on how to move through your daily checklist faster, more accurately and more efficiently

As we enter season three of this podcast, we've decided it makes sense to finally really dig directly into listener questions.  We also had realized that while we had touched on this in many other episodes, we didn't actually ever make an episode dedicated to one of the most important skills in live audio: Troubleshooting.  We knock on a few of the most common issues one may come across, and some of the most likely fixes!

Sticking to the "wall of sound" instruments we chat about strings and some of the various methods for getting them to sound cohesive, or stick out as solo instruments.  While this may not be the most common input an average live sound engineer may come across, the methods for achieving natural sounds with unnatural micing are somewhat easy to transfer to other similar instrument types.  We chat about how to best capture strings, and we dig into monitoring, equalization, dynamics processing, and more!

We gave up on the idea that we would cover multiple topics in this one episode, but in this extra-long episode we knock out one!  Choirs and background vocalists, why did we even think that this was similar to horns and strings? Because the goal is often a "wall of sound."  We chat about how to best capture groups of singers, and we dig into monitoring, equalization, dynamics processing, and more!

We really really did think that we would cover multiple topics in this one episode, but in this extra-long episode we barely covered one!  Not the most common input but brass instruments can be challenging to get right. We chat about how to best capture live various brass instruments, and we dig into equalization, dynamics processing, isolation, effects and a lot more.  

Since it's been ages since we've done an episode, in this extra-long episode we try to make up for lost time!  Continuing down the path of the channel by channel season, we spend a lot of time chatting about how to best capture live pianos, how to set up patches in pianos and synths, and we dig into equalization, dynamics processing, saturation, effects and a lot more.  

In this extra-long episode we skip ahead a bit, and dig into arguably the most important input, vocals.  Like all of the previous episodes we spend a lot of time chatting about how to best capture the sound, and we dig into equalization, dynamics processing, saturation, effects and a lot more, but we also talk a lot about goals and intent with vocal sounds.  This episode also features a special guest host, studio owner, producer, and touring musician Greg Karas.

Covering anywhere from one to a sixty inputs this episode, we dig into playback.  We chat about how to setup the outputs in the rig, how to prioritize the sounds, the difference between monitors and FOH in this regard, how to manage these lines during your line check, and of course we dive into some of the things you can do to make it work for you.

A whole family of inputs in the channel list, this episode we dig into an assortment of instruments that come up in many genres.  Acoustic guitars and other stringed instruments can be a pain.  A pain to get cleanly into wedges for monitoring, and a pain to make sound good given how dynamic they can be, but they're such commonly played instruments.  Like the previous episodes we spend a lot of time chatting about how to best capture the sound, and we dig into equalization, dynamics processing, saturation and a lot more.